My Name

I want to know where I came from. I want to know my family before I meet my family. I decided to record my family search as I travel the path to finding them or my memories of finding them.

I have been searching and learning since Oct. 2008. I can't number how many names I have rediscovered. Many. Over 10,000. Some by linking into work already done and others by my own hard work.

This is how my name came to be. I was named after my maternal great grandma. I never met her but my mom always has such a twinkle in her eye when she talks about her grandmother. I have always loved that I have her name. Laura Elizabeth.

As I was searching my family tree I decided one of the first places I would start was with Laura's grand mother. It was a blank spot on my chart. Just calling for me to fill it in. She had a paternal grandmother, Laura. But no maternal grandmother.

Her mother Myra Hickman Howie died at a young age. Laura never heard stories of the grandmother growing up. In fact she spent a short time in an orphanage until her father remarried.

I talked to any living person I could find that might have any information about Myra or her family. Nothing.

I was new at this family searching... how could I trust myself to find her mother to find family that no one else had found. So I was very nervous and a little skeptical when I found Myra in a census with her father and a brother. She was young. Could this really be her? All I knew about Myra fit with this child Myra.

Because this was my first find I was nervous that I was doing it wrong so I searched it to death to be sure it was right. It was right. I had found her father and from there it wasn't very hard to find her mother. Now I had a blank spot filled. Elizabeth Frances Ozment.

Back to my name.... Laura Elizabeth, named after my great grand mother Laura Elizabeth who to my happy surprise was named after her two grandmothers, Laura and Elizabeth!